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Plot Information for Dea al Mon

Gale Galoneth, Queen of Dea al Mon is desperate. 11 of her 12 daughters have fallen ill to the mysterious Waste. While the Brood of the True Born try to conquer her Territory she has opened its borders to call for aid.

Tales of Dragons are often thought as Myth, but the Dea al Mon know better. The creatures of legend that created the world once walked amongst them. In these days, the Dragon Lóku stood vigil beside the Dea al Mon, her favored children. Lóku taught the many ways of Craft to the Dea al Mon, whom though are now considered the Elder Races, were but children to the ancient one.

In that bygone era in the (now closed) Territories, the Elder Races walked amongst the spirits of the wood and communicated with them on a daily basis. Lóku taught the Elder Races how to listen to the needs of the forest, the spirits themselves, and how to invigorate the woods. For ages she was their mentor, friend, mother, and protector.

But while Lóku was a mentor to the Elder Races, she was not the only powerful being that lived in the Ebon Wood. Ancient spirits that had been part of the forest since creation helped form the rock, the air, the water, the animals, and even the native forces of the universe. Among them, Lóku’s most ardent enemy was a ravenous spirit of entropy and Hunger, Balmung, whom deceived some of the children of the ebon wood to wage war on Lóku and her children. In that first war, when the Elder Races learned their first lessons of death, they banded together to banish the ancient spirit into an eternal prison where it would lie still until the most recent days.

For centuries there was peace, but when the Elder Races fell into infighting during the Thousand Wars, Lóku retreated into the earth and let her children fight amongst themselves. Lóku, wishing to retreat from the needs of a physical form bonded with the land of the forest of Kassel, her body forever removed from Kaeleer, but her spirit enduring.

Centuries and then millennia came and went. The Elder Races stood removed as the Golden Age of Lady Snow was thought to last forever. Only when the corrupted young Blood rose up to greedily take from the land did Lóku return from her slumber, guiding her favored children, the Dea al Mon, to seclude themselves from the world filled with corrupted children. Through the aid of the Priestesshood the Dea al Mon communicated with the spirit of the great Dragon, passing down her lessons through the generations on how to make the pacts with the spirits. These pacts not only granted them their longer lives, but also helped form the construction of their homes, cities, fortresses, and the pathways in which they took through the Ebon Wood.

With ancient and powerful artifacts of times before history, the Dea al Mon used the Seven Mirrors of the Black Castle in combination of the craft of Lóku herself (through the Priestesshood) and the Kindred to whom she was closest and sealed Dea al Mon away from the younger races who lacked anything but untamable greed. For centuries leading up to the Purge the Dea al Mon remained constant as the guardians of the outer forest. The Dea al Mon played politics and conflict, but these were temporary measures in the grand scheme, and nothing compared to the widespread war that had nearly claimed the whole of the Ebon Forest.

Meanwhile the other Elder Races retreated behind their borders and leaving the Dea al Mon to their games and politics. Of this the Satyrs were the only who remained in consistent contact with the Dea al Mon until all of the Kindred races closed their borders. Only the Priestesses removed themselves from the squabbling and clamoring for power of their fellows, learning from ancient Lóku herself deep in the forest of Kassel where her body had become one with the land. The Priestesses retained their knowledge of how to communicate with the spirits of the woods, maintaining the relationships between the Dea al Mon and the spirits. They would bring forth offerings and bid promises to the spirits, offering their service as temporal vessels for the spirits, By doing so the spirits helped strengthen the borders of the Closed Territories and ensure that the Dea al Mon never went hungry nor wanted for anything, and lived long lives.

Debate raged for years amongst the guardians of the Ebon Forest of whether to engage against the Eyriens and their attempts to claim Kaeleer in the name of their Red Queen. But such debates were silenced when the Purge struck. Dea al Mon, Kindred, and even Lóku were swept by the power of Witch. Thousands died in the terrible Witchstorm that left the Ebon Forest forever changed. Yet despite the destruction wrought by the monumental event, the Dea al Mon survived and thought they had prospered.

Except for Lóku, their guide and teacher. Kindred and Dea al Mon both, so very many of those the spirit loved, were slain by the Purge. Even the spirits of the wood were decimated by the Witchstorm, and this too, tore at her psychic fabric and her mind. A creature so ancient as the Dragon was not meant to know what pain felt like neither the physical or spiritual that tore into her “body” (the land itself) and psyche. Deeply wounded by the power of Witch, the Dragon may well have consumed all of Kaeleer in her madness. It is said that those who survived saw the land of Kassel rise up in the shape of a monstrous mound of earth, rock, and trees with a reptilian maw that roared out a pledge in an ancient tongue.

Desperate to stop their former mentor from undoing all that they had done, the remaining Priestesshood of Dea al Mon came together to face the monstrosity of spirit and earth in the heart of the Forest of Kassel. There, they used a great ritual that put Lóku into an eternal slumber. Their act was not without cost, and the salvation of the Elder Races came with the sacrifice of the lives of each and every one of the adult Priestesses. Dea al Mon had survived, but in doing so they had lost the very people who had given them the quality of life that they were all accustomed. The Crafts of woodworking, treeshaping, and shapeshifting are now lost arts, and more unsettling for the Dea al Mon is that some of those born in recent decades show the hallmarks of holding life-spans of the short-lived, rather than the 200 years they had been accustomed.

The terrifying tragedy shook the Children of the Wood from a power vacuum into solidarity. With renewed purpose the Dea al Mon unified and returned to their task of protecting the whole of the Closed Territories from the encroachment of the younger races that might destroy all that they had sacrificed to protect and preserve. But even as the Children of the Wood united, they failed at the time to notice just how terrible the price they had paid for peace truly was: Their spirit had forever been marked by the madness of the dragon that was imprisoned in the earth beneath them and set to slumber until the end of days. With the Priestesshood greatly diminished and ignorant of previous lessons, the spirits of the wood have become more myth than truth, which besets the Dea al Mon with issues of harvest and the strength of the Borders.

Few have been born to the Priestess caste since the great sacrifice that, once, was celebrated fervently in remembrance, but now is mostly forgotten. More insidiously, most of the young Dea al Mon seem to lack the general concepts that the Priestesses espouse. Casteless witches that have tried to learn the way of the most spiritual of women find it difficult to understand and connect with their teachings. Slowly a miasma of spirit has spread through the whole of the Ebon Forest. What began as a few rare and isolated incidents of a sickness that seems to affect both flesh and mind has begun to spread, until now it is the case where one in twenty of the Dea al Mon are now afflicted by what has been uniformly called “The Waste”. This miasma is, in fact, not some random event, but a combination of a lack of connection to the spirits of the wood, and the psychic nightmares of the spirit of the dragon, bound to the earth beneath their feet.

Worse, the few Priestesses that attempt to help resuscitate the spirit of their people have become targets of a new group that has risen to prominence in Dea al Mon known as the Brood of the True Born. Known by most of the Territory as a Cult, the Brood is a collection of those afflicted by the Waste. What was once thought as merely fringe lunatics has now become a force to be reckoned with, as the Brood has taken control of the majority of the Dark Forest of Kassel, the depraved creatures twisted by their malady haunting one of the oldest regions of the Ebon Forest.

While the Territory Court and the organization of the Ebon Forest itself is not gone, a lack of spirit in the people has brought about an anathema to action and creativity. If something is not done soon, then the whole of the Ebon Forest will be overrun with monsters made of the very creatures whom swore to protect these ancient lands, and the Dea al Mon will be lost.

Succession Plan:Gale Galoneth has been Queen of the Ebon Forest for the last thirty years. A crafty, peerless political machine, she rose up to the highest position in Dea al Mon outmaneuvering rivals who bore both darker jewels and more impressive lineages after the death of her elder sister. Striking the line between progressive and conservative, she managed to maintain a Territory with such efficiency that it had never seen such prosperity since the ancient days.

But the Waste has grown in its vicious spread in the last ten years, and Gale has lost all but one of her Twelve Daughters to either the nefarious Brood of the True Born or to the Waste that has afflicted Dea al Mon as a whole. All efforts to stem the tide of the corruptive disease has failed. Their own Healers are certain it is not a physical malady, where as Priestesses have become targets for the Brood specifically and have not yet been able to offer any solutions. The Kindred seem to be at a loss in how to treat the Waste, and those of the Elder Races closer to men seem even more vulnerable to its effects. Unable to affect the Waste with their Craft and fearing falling under its effects, the Kindred have withdrawn to their own lands, sealing their Borders and bid the Dea al Mon to not try to contact them until they have found a solution to the Waste.

While Gale sends the bulk of the Ebon Guard and Red Cloaks to the border of Kassel to do battle against the Brood and hold the line, she has placed a geas upon several able-bodied and bold men in her court. She has issued a single order and reward: If the men go into the other territories and brings back a Priestess who can offer a solution to the Waste, they earn the right to wed one of her daughters. But the geas, unknown to the men who have been placed beneath it, prevents them from returning to Dea al Mon without one.

But while Gale’s court tries to find a cure for the Waste, the Brood has a plan of its own. The Brood search frantically for Lóku’s resting place, intent to stir the ancient sleeper and spread her “blessed gift” to the whole of Dea al Mon, and indeed, all of the Closed Territories.

It is thus a race against time for Gale’s Court and the Dea al Mon to find a cure before the Brood succeeds, lest the whole of them fall under the sway of the nightmarish disease.

Impact on the levels of District/Province/Territory/Realm::

Dea al Mon has Three Provinces, formed by the geographic features of mountains and named after iconic features. The easternmost Esgarth holds the Capital which is seated upon twisting spires of trees that had been bent and shifted to accommodate the Dea al Mon by the spirits of old. As the pacts between spirit and the Children of the Wood has faded, the traditional construction of making use of the trees to house buildings themselves has faded to more common construction. It is also the province that houses the headquarters of both the Red Cloaks and the Ebon Guard. Most of the oldest and most preserved structures of their history reside here, but their borders are being pressured by the Brood, and the Ebon Guard has the bulk of its forces stationed here.

Kassel, named after the forest that contains most of it, has fallen under control of the Brood of the True Born. The Province Court is ruling in effective exile from the Capital. As the last villages of Kassel have fallen into the hands of the Brood, the Province as a whole is almost entirely under control of the Brood.

Devinos is the northernmost province and is the border to many of the Closed Territories. Currently the other elder races have closed their borders until the Waste has been dealt with. Most of the refugees of Kassel have immigrated here. One of the more disputed institutions of the Territory, the Sanctums, are in Devinos which hold many of those afflicted with the Waste. These Sanctums serve as both prison and hospital, but outsiders investigating them have reason to believe they are something more sinister. While there are a few outposts here, this is the most peaceful Province of Dea al Mon, and holds much of the farmland.

The Brood has been in existence for the last twenty years. Originally seen as merely an outlying Cult of the deranged and diseased, it has now become a safe haven for the Children of the Wood who have been afflicted by the Waste, especially in its later stages. Lead by a charismatic Healer Priestess who reputedly willingly accepted the Waste, the Brood espouses a religion that the Waste is a natural evolution of their people. Spreading the dogma that the Brood is what the Dea al Mon are destined to become, they have begun kidnapping Priestesses and other notable healers from their former brothers and sisters and taking them deep into the Dark Forest where the Brood is strongest.

Further, unknown to the rest of the Children of the Wood, but the leader of the Brood has begun using the ancient arts that bound them to the spirits. Whereas once the dealings between the Dea al Mon and the forest spirits were beneficial, the Brood has perverted these rites to include blood sacrifice, torture, and cannibalism as part of these pacts.

Doing so has altered the very forest itself. The natural creatures of the Dark Forest of Kassel have begun become twisted and nightmarish, barely relatable to the original birds and beasts that they were before. Dark terrors have begun to rise from the earth, the trees themselves become ravenous for the blood and flesh of the Dea al Mon, and sunlight never seems able to pierce through the almost supernatural gloom of the Dark Forest.

If Gale’s messengers do not succeed, if the Dea al Mon do not succeed, then the whole of their land will fall prey to this affliction.

Effects on other Territories:

As the Seekers move to recruit (or kidnap) Priestesses to help save their people, the rest of the Territories have been unable to affect the Dea al Mon as a whole. This will change when the magical barrier that forms the border of Dea al Mon is sundered by the actions of the Brood, causing Dea al Mon to be available to the rest of the Kaeleer for the first time since the separation of the Children of the Elder Wood from the Untamed.

The Dea al Mon must then deal with outside forces, the Brood, and their own cultural boundaries. Some will seek to make this event an opportunity for more militaristic rule, others as a flame of hope for aid, and others still as a time of desperation.

The war with the Brood is pushing toward a fateful climax, and the entire Territory will not be the same.

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